


a strange exhilaration

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, F/F, The Worst Witch (2017) Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 00:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18487162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: Ethel Hallow does not have a crush on Mildred Hubble and if she did, she would not do anything about it.





	a strange exhilaration

**Author's Note:**

> title from that lesbian classic, "what is this feeling" from wicked.

Ethel Hallow was the brightest witch of her age and had a list of accomplishments longer than your arm. Both of your arms, actually. She was also the _true_ head of year, as every sensible person knew that she was far better than Maud Spellbody and would have easily got the top mark on Selection Day if not for… _her_.

See, the thing was that… Ethel may have had a small problem. And that problem's name was Mildred Hubble.

Of course there was all the usual stuff, like how Mildred was constantly messing things up, exploding things, causing general chaos and making the school a terrible learning environment for everyone around her leading to detrimentally-affected learning outcomes for the entire year.

Also the part where Mildred constantly seemed to escape punishment for any of that, sometimes even getting _Ethel_ in trouble instead (see: that time with the petunias, which Ethel had absolutely _no_ responsibility for, and honestly Miss Cackle had walked in at exactly the wrong moment, which Ethel would have been able to explain if Miss Cackle hadn't got the entirely wrong idea about the pitchfork).

But mostly Ethel's problem was that she could not stop looking at her. She felt a little nauseous at the sight of her, and yet she couldn't look away. At first she'd tried to convince herself that it was only natural to feel ill at the sight of someone so decidedly plain and unwitchlike, but if that were the case why were her eyes drawn to Mildred whenever she was in the room? Why did she keep standing near her? Why did it feel so significant when Mildred's hand brushed hers when they were both reaching for the dried woodlouse?

Her first attempt at solving this problem was discussing it with Drusilla. Well, 'discussing' was a bit rich, because it _was_ Drusilla, and she wasn't exactly a thrilling conversationalist, but you had to work with what you had.

"Drusilla," she had begun, one afternoon as they were working on their spellcraft science homework. "Do you — Mildred Hubble, she — never mind."

Alright, so maybe she hadn't discussed it with Drusilla at all. It was so difficult to work out what to say, what she wanted to ask. She didn't even know what answer she wanted. It was all such a _mess_.

"Drusilla," she tried again the next day. "Mildred Hubble, she's terribly plain, isn't she?"

"Yes," Drusilla said, looking at Ethel with a tiny frown on her face. It was just a brief hint of 'I have no idea why you're bringing up Mildred Hubble and I don't know what the answer I’m supposed to give you is so I very much hope this is what you wanted to hear'.

"Really, the least she could do is dye her hair a decent colour or something. And perhaps — perhaps if she got glasses, her face would work better. Appearance-wise, I mean."

"… I guess?" Drusilla said, now sounding more than a little concerned.

"Not to mention that hideous lumpy scarf of hers. Who wears _home-knit_ clothing? Truly, I cannot believe that she represented our school to the Great Wizard of all people! And have you seen her on weekends? Ugh, her clothes are awful. Especially that stripy shirt she was wearing on Saturday, with the writing on the front."

Drusilla nodded, apparently not even risking saying words now in case they were the wrong ones.

"I just don't see why she has to be so… there all the time. She's always so _distracting_ , and I certainly do not appreciate it. If only the teachers at this school listened to me and saw me as the wonderful student with valuable opinions that I am, they would have expelled her ages ago."

"Yeah," Drusilla said. Again, not a thrilling conversationalist.

"Yes. Anyway, what was the pages we needed for homework?"

It was a good chat. Well, it was… a chat? Well, it was.

* * *

She managed to survive several more weeks of Mildred Hubble being constantly _there_ in rooms that Ethel was also in before she finally went to Esmerelda. She hated asking Esmerelda for help because that was admitting weakness, and she couldn't do that — she wanted to beat all of Esmerelda's records because then she would finally be more worthy of affection and her parents would see that she was the best child once and for all. Esmerelda didn't seem to see it that way, but that was just going to make her easier to beat! It was a shame that Esmerelda simply did not have the same cutthroat drive as Ethel did, and Ethel was going to capitalise on that as soon as she could work out how.

For now, she had decided that the downsides of showing weakness were outweighed by the sheer distraction that Mildred was proving to be. She briefly considered talking about it with Felicity, but she didn't know she'd get much further than with Drusilla — like all good friends, Felicity was primarily concerned with telling Ethel what she wanted to hear.

Esmerelda, at least, would not be desperately clutching at opportunities to earn Ethel's affection.

"Esmerelda," she said one lunchtime, as they were both exiting the dining hall. "I have… a question. I require your help."

"Of course, Ethel," Esmerelda said, smiling as if she did not see this for what it was, a hideous display of blood in the water that she should have taken advantage of.

"What does it mean when you feel ill whenever you look at someone but you can't _stop_ looking at them and also they're really distracting, not only in the actual way where they keep interrupting classes but also the part where you can't concentrate on lessons because you keep just looking at them instead? I need it to stop."

Esmerelda had the gall to actually _laugh_. It was disgusting. This was a serious matter!

"Sounds like you have a crush," she said, grinning as if this were not a) definitely wrong and b) the worst (if it were correct, which it was not). "Any hints who it is?"

"Absolutely not," Ethel said, straightening her shoulders and standing up to her full height. A Hallow never slouches.

"I'm afraid you do, Ethie. It's perfectly normal! There's nothing you can really do to make it go away, though. It fades on its own sometimes, or you could actually do something about it and then maybe you can have a relationship with the person in question. You know, hold hands and sit together at lunch and whatnot."

"That is absolutely not happening."

Esmerelda shrugged. "I don't know how to help beyond that, sorry. I do hope it all goes well though, you should let me know what happens."

"Nothing is going to happen," Ethel said. She did not have a crush! Also, she was not going to do anything about the crush she did not have!

"Of course not," Esmerelda said, giving her a wave before leaving her alone with her thoughts. Eugh. Mildred Hubble. A crush on Mildred Hubble? Absurd.

* * *

Ethel had a crush on Mildred Hubble and it was the _worst_.

She finally admitted that Esme was right when she was left a blushing mess after Mildred bumped into her at lunch, spilling food all over her. This wasn't even the first time this had happened, and she absolutely should have been furious, although cleaning up was relatively easy with magic. She _should_ have been furious, but she wasn't — even as she was going through the motions of offence and outrage, her actual feelings were something closer to fond exasperation.

Given Mildred was quite possibly the single biggest reason that Witching Society was going down the toilet, 'fond exasperation' was not the ideal emotion, and Ethel tried to convince herself that she felt literally anything harsher, but no. She fancied Mildred Hubble. And it was quite possibly the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

When Mildred once again made a mockery of Witch History by proposing they sit straddling the broom, Ethel tried to find a suitably cutting remark to make about how Mildred just wasn't graceful enough or how she didn't know how many years of tradition she was blithely spitting on with the mere suggestion. She really did try, but there just… wasn't one. She was coming up blank, and when Maud looked surprised that Ethel hadn't said anything, she just put her best snooty expression on and turned away.

At least she could act correctly towards Maud and Enid. Small mercies.

A week of deeply uncomfortable introspection and even more uncomfortable uselessness in the face of Mildred Hubble passed. This was not going away. Ethel considered just waiting it out, as she was certain it had to go away at some point — but a small voice at the back of her mind told her that it couldn’t possibly be that bad, actually. That the worst she could do would be to have Mildred reject her and then things would go back to the status quo, hopefully with her back to being able to engineer her expulsion.

The first time she helped Mildred get exactly the right amount of lizard livers, Mildred asked her if she’d doctored them somehow, maybe soaked them in cat’s tears so her cauldron would explode. Ethel tried not to be impressed that Mildred was finally learning something if she knew that cat’s tears would have that effect and failed. 

“I haven’t,” she said, hoping Mildred could sense her sincerity. Drusilla was giving her a weird look, she could see it out of the corner of her eye, and she really never wanted to deal with it. “I promise, you saw me take them out of the same container I got mine from. We can swap if you like.”

Mildred hesitated, clearly debating whether to take Ethel up on her offer. Finally, she shook her head. “No thank you,” she said, sniffing the livers and wrinkling her nose, which was _far_ too cute to be allowed. 

At the end of class, no one’s cauldron had exploded, and Mildred passed Ethel on the way out of the classroom, saying, “Thanks,” as she passed. Drusilla tried to ask Ethel what was going on as they walked to flying lessons, but Ethel successfully distracted her with talk about the Great Wizard. It felt a little like she was committing some sort of crime, and she didn’t like it.

* * *

Ethel continued with these small overtures of friendship, getting Mildred used to the idea that she was not always out for her blood, as you’d let a cat get to know you before you tried to pet it. It was an astonishingly short amount of time before Mildred started smiling at her totally unbidden, in greeting or (in one particularly mortifying instance) when she caught Ethel looking at her. Butterflies had some sort of boisterous and undignified party in her stomach every time Mildred’s smile was directed at her, her eyes crinkling just so and her teeth all — no! She may have had a crush on Mildred Hubble but she was _not_ going to get lost in how pretty she was. That was unacceptable.

Mildred may have begun to trust her, but Maud and Enid didn’t, and Ethel found herself stammering and trying not to flush red in the face of their hostile interrogations. It sounded a little thin to say she was just trying to be friendly because they got off on the wrong foot, and yet — what else was there to say? She could hardly tell them the truth.

Finally, one night after dinner, Mildred knocked on her door, calling out, “Ethel?”

Ethel panicked momentarily, sure she wasn’t ready for this, but there was nothing to be done about it. She put on her best smile, straightened her pinafore and opened the door to a Mildred who was… not smiling back.

“Can I come in?”

Ethel stood to the side, closing the door behind Mildred and noting that she didn’t see Enid or Maud anywhere. She was surprised they allowed Mildred to come alone.

Mildred looked nervous, biting her lip as she stood in the middle of Ethel’s room.

“Maud and Enid think—” she began, taking a deep breath. “—they think that you’re only being nice to trick me into something. I thought maybe they were right, but you haven’t done _anything_ mean in ages and I can’t see how—” Mildred stopped, clearly frustrated at her lack of understanding. “Why are you being nice to me?”

Ethel could have lied. She should have, probably. She should have lied, slipped something highly illegal into Mildred’s pocket and then exposed her to Miss Cackle and had her expelled. The thing was that Ethel did what she was _supposed_ to do all the time, and it hadn’t actually gone Ethel’s way once. Her mother still ignored her, Mildred was still very much a pupil, and she wasn’t even head of Year One.

So instead she told the truth.

“I promise I’m not playing some game to trick you into trusting me. I’ve stopped trying to get you expelled because… because I like you. I think you’re quite pretty, though you’d look prettier if you had glasses, and your smile is really lovely and I tried to hate you but I couldn’t and I’m still not sure what that means.”

Ethel could feel her face was practically on fire by the end of her speech, but Mildred had not fled the room or punched her in the face, so she used all her strength to continue looking at her. Mildred’s mouth had fallen open just a little, and after a beat Mildred closed it.

“You can’t get expelled for dating a classmate, can you?” she said at last, with an unreadable expression. Ethel found this the most worrying thing yet — Mildred was always embarrassingly easy to read.

“No, why would you think that? That’s absurd.” Ethel noted that Mildred had not rejected her, but at the same time, this was not the sort of response she had expected. She hadn’t even thought of whether you could be expelled for that, but there was no reason you _would_ be. Besides, Esmerelda had told her to go for it. Esmerelda would know.

“I was just checking,” Mildred said, blushing. Her whole face went red and it wasn’t a delicate rose tint to her cheeks or anything, but Ethel still thought it was beautiful. This was terrible.

They both stood there, neither sure what to do, until Mildred spoke again. “I thought you were being nice. Maud and Enid wanted to come with me to see you, but I said I wanted to go alone because I — I wanted you to like me.”

Ethel held her breath. Did she mean like or _like_? Damn you, Mildred Hubble!

“I’ve been working on this if you want to — to have it, or hang it up somewhere or something,” Mildred said, fumbling a little as she took something out of her pocket. It was about the size of an envelope, and when Ethel took it from her she realised it was a pencil portrait of her, carefully shaded and signed at the bottom. In the picture, Ethel was concentrating on something, every detail captured so carefully that Ethel was lost for words.

“This is lovely,” she said at last, hardly daring to look up from it. “You’re really good at drawing.”

“Thanks.”

“Does this mean that you like me back?” Ethel said, finally looking at Mildred as she waited for the answer. Mildred nodded, and Ethel broke into a grin.

“I should probably go and reassure Maud and Enid that you haven’t turned me into a frog again though,” Mildred said, glancing back at the door. “I promise they won’t accuse you of evil schemes anymore.”

“Alright. Before you go — can I give you a hug?”

“Yeah!” Mildred hugged her, just like that, like it was nothing at all. Ethel was taken by surprise, even though she was the one who had asked for it in the first place, but after a moment she returned it, able to appreciate the warmth and the comforting feeling of being squeezed firmly. Ethel so rarely hugged, and it was only in this moment that she discovered what she’d been missing.

As Mildred pulled away, she gave Ethel a peck on the cheek, blushing again and leaving, shutting the door behind her. Ethel sat down on her bed and just smiled dreamily into nothing, completely forgetting her spell science homework.

It was worth it.


End file.
